Joaquin Phoenix says awards season is bullsh*t and carrots are for A-holes

Joaquin Phoenix played a gas-huffing, window-licking, pervert in The Master, the kind of performance Academy voters love – kinda, but not totally retarded, exactly the way blackface Robert Downey described it. Plus, you can’t fake that harelip and weird shoulder. But Joaquin let it be known in a recent interview with Interview magazine that he don’t need no steenkeen awards, ése.

Phoenix, the star of the Weinstein Co. awards contender The Master,responded to a question by Elvis Mitchell by saying that the awards circuit is “total, utter bullshit, and I don’t want to be a part of it.”

“…I don’t want this carrot. It’s totally subjective. Pitting people against each other … It’s the stupidest thing in the whole world.”
“It was one of the most uncomfortable periods of my life when Walk the Line was going through all the awards stuff and all that,” said Phoenix, who did take home a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance in the biopic.
“I never want to have that experience again. I don’t know how to explain it — and it’s not like I’m in this place where I think I’m just above it — but I just don’t ever want to get comfortable with that part of things.” [hollywoodreporter]

The Oscars has basically become a parody of itself, awarding the movies that look like parodies of Oscar movies – The King’s Speech, The Iron Lady, Precious – and you don’t win any money for it (or else Cuba Gooding wouldn’t be hanging out with snow dogs), so why should Joaquin give a sh*t? The studio has an incentive to campaign for Oscars, but for the individual actor who’s already secure in his/her talent, there isn’t much of one. I don’t know if this will affect his chances one way or another, but if the Academy continues down this path of awarding unintentional parody, Joaquin seems like the perfect choice. Check out the Tropic Thunder speech and tell me it doesn’t describe Freddy Quell in The Master perfectly.

Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, ‘Rain Man,’ look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho’. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, ‘Forrest Gump.’ Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and he won a ping-pong competition. That ain’t retarded. He was a goddamn war hero! How many retarded war heroes you know?

Joaquin Phoenix – drank paint thinner, kissed windows, farted on boats, but he charmed the shirts off all the ladies and spent half the movie crushin’ poontang! How many retarded ladies’ men you know? You might see one in a fancy hat. Juvenile, yes. Perverted, sure. Not retarded.

Santa knows what he’s talking about. You slide your fat ass all the way down some spoiled shit’s chimney just to give him free crap that he doesn’t deserve, and all you ask in return is a nice chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk. It’s really not much to ask after all that effort. What do you find on the table instead? A goddamn carrot that some dreadlocked whitey vegan left out.

Regardless of how obvious this is to everyone I’m glad Joaquin said this publicly. Business awards are predictable and dreary no matter what industry you are in.

Sales team of the year? *fart*
Managers who participated in the operating expense reduction project? *fart*

Same with the Oscars.

What would be neat is if awards weren’t given out to someone in every category every year but instead were given based on only those categories that had something truly interesting or amazing happen. Sure it would take a lot of internal voting/politics but that happens already. What it would do is keep the industry and viewers interested because the categories themselves would be a surprise.

That’s actually a fantastic idea, and one that would never go over in a subculture that relies so heavily on public image. Imagine if they gave out a Best Actor but not a Best Actress. (Tangential Note: It’s bizarre that the awards are dividing by sex to begin with, though I can already see the argument for both sides.)